


You're With Somebody I Can't Be

by Dylanobrienisbatman



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Echo deserves love, Endgame Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, F/M, Lite Memori, Lite Zaven, POV Echo, becho break up, echo helps bellarke work it out, this is a bellarke fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-13 20:21:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14755670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dylanobrienisbatman/pseuds/Dylanobrienisbatman
Summary: Echo and Bellamy found each other in those years in space, but the idea that nothing would change when they got to the ground went out the window when they found out Clarke was alive. But Bellamy was too much of a good man to ever ask her for that. So Echo gives it to him, because maybe being selfless is what she needs for herself now. Maybe thats what its all about, in the end.





	You're With Somebody I Can't Be

Echo couldn’t help but see it. See it all unfolding in front of her. She had so much confidence in their love, new and soft as it was, up there in space. They had sort of fallen into each other, after more than five years, and she had been sure. So sure, that this was good, that this would work. And then they landed on the ground and a little natblida told Bellamy the one thing that she knew they could never come back from, even if he wouldn’t admit it. Clarke was alive. There was no way they could ever make it back from that whole.

She tried to ignore the feeling in her gut when he raced after that little girl, with no real confirmation, no assurance that she wasn’t planted there to lure him into a trap. He just blindly followed, as if the chance that Clarke might be alive was worth risking his life for after all this time. Maybe it was, for him. Maybe that was the thing they had been missing all along.

She tried to ignore the way a warm jealous flame licked up her spine when he sent Madi and the rover away, staying there, surrounded by guns, for Clarke, lying on the ground, looking up at him like he was angel. Maybe to her he was.

She tried not to pay attention as the minutes turned into hours turned into days and he still hadn’t come to find her, still hadn’t come back from Clarke. He might be dead, but she doubted it. She knew, at the end of it all, that he would risk life and limb for Clarke Griffin, and succeed. He would save her, no matter the deal that had to be struck, even if the deal was for his own demise. She had died for him, he would die for her. Maybe that was why she felt like she was going to hurl for almost 4 days straight.

When Murphy showed up in the woods, loud as ever amongst the trees, and told them that missiles were going to be fired at the people from the bunker, at Bellamy, she pushed aside the feelings that were wrapped around her like a straight jacket, and let little Madi drive them off to god knows where. With no confirmation that they would find anything but dust and the dead. Maybe this was how she knew she loved him. That she would risk her life for even the chance to see him again.

When the rover pulled up to a large expanse of sand between the dunes, and a crowd of people looking much worse for wear than she expected. She couldn’t help but pause. Bellamy was sitting on the ground, with his sister, and with Clarke. She couldn’t see his face, but she could see Clarkes. She could see the way Clarke’s eyes never left his face, the way she seemed concerned by his conversation with Octavia, like she wasn’t sure what was being said but there was no way it could possibly be good. The way her whole body seemed to lean towards him, like a magnet was pulling her into him. She saw it. She couldn’t help but see it.

When Madi leapt from the Rover and flew across the sand into Clarke’s waiting arms, she finally pulled herself from the back and walked around. She didn’t mean to run to him, she didn’t mean to draw attention to herself in the presence of his sister, but once she saw his face again she couldn’t help it. She ran to him, but didn’t miss how he slowed to a walk on his way to her. Didn’t miss how he seemed less than urgent in his attempts to find her again. She ran to him anyway. Maybe thats what love was. Loving someone even when you can feel it all slipping away.

She pressed her forehead into his, and pulled him in for a kiss that turned bruising and heady faster than she meant it too. She tried to slow it down for a second, but then thought better of it. She could feel him slipping away from her, pulling away from whatever they had, so she clung to whatever it was they were doing, whatever remnants they had left, so she kissed him hard and urgent. She didn’t miss the look on Clarke’s face after they separated, if only for a fraction of a second, but then her attention turned to Octavia and she the emotion behind Clarke’s eyes be a problem be for another day.

The fight was ongoing, with Octavia, with Wonkru, with her own emotions, and even with Eligius, who were proving to be less of a threat than expected, but eventually, it was impossible to ignore it anymore. The way they shared looks with one another, before Clarke would turn away, almost embarrassed. The way he and Clarke would share meaningful looks and then she would get up and leave him, like she was running from something. The way Bellamy would chase after her for a half a second before deciding against it, like he was battling with his own mind. The way his eyes would follow her, everywhere Clarke went, his eyes would follow, even when he was sitting with her. She watched them, she saw it all. She saw so much. She saw too much, too much to let it go on any longer. She knew Bellamy would never ask this of her, and she couldn’t really bring himself to hear him say it, to hear him pick her.

So she went to Clarke instead.

She approached her at dinner, sitting with Madi in the corner, and she could feel Bellamy’s eyes on her across the room when she passed between them. Always watching. Always present.

“Can we talk?”

Clarke looked shocked at the suggestion, and a little afraid, but nodded, getting up to follow Echo outside, finding an open space by a deserted fire pit. Clarke hadn’t looked up from her hands since they left the bunker.

“Did you…” She finally pipped up, her voice small. The look on her face was clear. She knew why they were there.

“He is yours.” Clarke’s eyes grew almost 3 sizes and her jaw hung opened.

“I would never… I don’t…” To her credit she didn’t try to deny it. She just wasn’t sure how to respond. Echo wasn’t sure how she would have responded either.

“I know you would never ask this of me… but it doesn’t really matter whether you would ask or not. He chose you, from the minute he found out you were alive, he has chosen you.” Her words caught in her throat like spines, but her eyes were dry. She meant it, every word of it. It surprised her really how much she meant it.

“He hasn’t… he picked you. He is with… you.” Her voice stuttered in her throat, and her eyes were wet with tears unshed.

“He was with me… because he could never be with you. You died for us. And he lived his whole life for you. For six years he lived his life in your honour, in your memory, your last words to him as his mantra. He may have been with me, but he was always yours.”

“I don’t… want to get in the middle of anything.” Clarke looked almost disbelieving, “And he may have… but he doesn’t love me. Not like that. Its different… hes my person, hes my best friend, and maybe I… feel… that way about him.. but he do-“  
“Yes he does.” She cut her off, smooth but not harshly. “He loves you. He has spent the last 7 years loving you. He loved you before we went to space, and he had to push the idea that he ever loved you away, because you were gone, and he never got the chance to tell you. We all knew he loved you before. Not just your friends, although they knew too… but also Roan, and all those who went against you. You were his weakness, and he was yours. It was always you, the two of you. He loves you. All you have to do is tell him you love him too. I promise.” How had she gone from angry and mournful to reassuring this girl that the her own boyfriend didn’t love her, but loved Clarke instead.

“I dont know how.” Her voice was soft now, almost broken. This was not Echo’s job.

“That is something you need to mend for yourself then, Wanheda. He is yours to have, if you want him, if you will take him. I have done my part.” She nodded curtly to this powerful woman who had been reduced to tears at the thought of Bellamy Blake, turned on her heel, and left. She went back to their shared room and gathered her things, scant as they were, into a pack, and moved into Raven’s room with her. She wasn’t pleased, having just gotten ride of Emori, but she gave a sad smile when Echo dropped her bag on the second bed and that was that. She found Bellamy in the mess before he made it back to the now half empty room, and stopped him.

“I moved my things out of your room.” He looked startled.

“What? Why would you move out of our room?”

“Bellamy…”  
“Did i do something wrong? What is going on?”

“Look… I’m not going to say anything out of place… that is not my way. But you were wrong.” He looked puzzled. “When you told me that nothing would change on the ground, i believed you. And If it had just been Octavia, if it had just been Wonkru and your sister and Eligius… you would have been right. But Bellamy… you cant tell me that her being here, her being alive hasn’t changed something for you.”

“I don-“

“you dont have to say anything to me. You dont have to explain. I always knew that for the rest of our lives I would be competing with a ghost, trying to be enough to fill that hole in your heart. And i probably would never have been enough… but with her gone that would have been okay. But she isn’t gone anymore. She’s here, she’s real and she’s breathing and she died for you to live, and you have to give yourself a chance to have that.” His eyes were soft, holding her gaze. He pulled her in, wrapping himself around her, and pulled back to press a soft kiss into her forehead.

“I’m so sorry… I never meant..”

“I know you never meant… I don’t blame you. I’m not angry. I just know that this.. it isn’t fair to either of us. you can’t be with the one you truly love, and you’d never ask me to let you, and I can’t find the person I’m meant to be with if we stayed like this.”

“I’m still sorry.”

She smiled, pressing a kiss into his cheek, before retreating back into Ravens room again.

The next few days she tried to avoid them both, but they didn’t seem to have figured anything out yet, which made her smile to herself. Somehow, even with the path cleared, they were still afraid. Afraid to even chance it, afraid of what could be.

idiots.

It had been about four days, and she was sparring with Raven in the woods, with Zeke looking on, and finally asking her to teach him. She was showing him a few moves, when they heard a giggle come from the trees, and it took a moment before Madi emerged.

“What is it Natblida?” She called out, unhooking her arm from around Zekes shoulder. She had him pinned. He wasn’t very good.

“I just saw Clarke and Bellamy KISSING.” She giggled again.

Raven walked over and took her hand, smiling at her, and pressing a kiss into her shoulder, as a comfort. 

Echo expected to feel a punch to the gut, or at least that warm flame of jealousy that travelled up her spine, but she felt nothing but relief.He had never been hers, not really, and she had, somewhere deep inside, always known that. She felt at peace. She felt serenity.

Maybe this, maybe selflessness, and doing the right thing for someone else, for nothing in return, was what it was all about.

Maybe this is what it meant to love. 


End file.
